Details on Newly Uncovered GRU Online Personasbellingcat
On Christmas, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post from published two widely shared reports on GRU (Russian military intelligence) activities in creating fake profiles on social networks, along with astroturfed political activist groups. The first …

When it comes to the investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal and his other assorted crimes, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has the upper hand in nearly every way. He has the leeway to do essentially whatever he sees fit with the probe. He has the evidence on his side. He has multiple key cooperating witnesses. There is only one thing that Mueller doesn’t necessarily have on his side but he just scored a key victory in that regard.Trump has been sitting back and letting Mueller pick him apart because Trump is under the delusion that Mueller is ultimately going to exonerate him. This is in large part thanks to Trump’s own attorneys, who for reasons known only to them have convinced Trump that Mueller will clear him soon. The trouble: the imaginary deadlines made up by Trump’s attorneys have come and gone, and Trump has gotten antsy, on the verge of figuring out that he’s in real trouble, and perhaps deciding to fight back accordingly. Yet now we’re learning that time is once again on Mueller’s side.

At last count, Trump’s attorneys had convinced him that Mueller would wrap the investigation and exonerate him by Christmas. They’ve slid that date back on Trump before, and he’s bought into it. But the holidays and the end of the year are a difficult deadline to get past. Yet nonetheless, the Wall Street Journal (link) is reporting that Trump’s lawyers have now convinced him that Mueller may need through the end of January. This is fundamentally huge, and it finally tells us how that fabled meeting between Mueller and Trump’s attorneys went.

In the short term, Robert Mueller is at a crucial point in his investigation. He’s had the Michael Flynn plea deal in place for weeks, and he’s presumably been using that evidence to set up a move on Jared Kushner. If Trump can be convinced to keep waiting, it gives Mueller the time he needs to take Kushner down. In the longer term, if Trump’s attorneys were able to convince him to give Mueller into 2018, it means they can keep pushing him back, because he’ll swallow anything.

It’s been more than three weeks since Special Counsel Robert Mueller cut a plea deal with Michael Flynn. That deal was so lenient, with all but the lowest charge set aside, it’s clear that Flynn demonstrated to Mueller that he has evidence sufficient to use against bigger fish. We don’t know for sure who that fish is, but various circumstances suggest that Mueller is using the Flynn deal to target Kushner. So why doesn’t Mueller just handcuff Kushner, or whoever the current target is, and get it over with?The short answer: such an arrest would mean failure. Mueller’s probe isn’t an investigation into what Jared Kushner, or Michael Flynn, or Paul Manafort did. Sure, their activities are part of it. But this is an investigation into the role that Donald Trump played in the Russian election conspiracy. If Mueller has to arrest Kushner, it’ll be because Kushner has dug in his heels and decided to fight whatever charges might end up being brought against him. If that’s the case, then Mueller won’t get anything useful out of Kushner until at least after it goes to trial in six months or more. Even then, Mueller may never get anything out of him.

Mueller began by arresting Paul Manafort because he knew that Manafort would try to use his limitless cash and fancy lawyers to fight the charges in court. There was no chance of getting Manafort to agree to a deal anyway, so Mueller popped him in order to scare others into cutting deals. Sure enough, Flynn took a look at his own empty bank account and realized he could’t afford the kind of lawyers that get people off on technicalities and such, so he cut a deal.

Now Robert Mueller has enough from Michael Flynn to make the kind of bulletproof case against Jared Kushner (or whoever the current big-fish target is, if not Kushner) that even fancy lawyers can’t succeed in fighting. Mueller is surely trying to pressure that person into cutting a deal as we speak, and if it takes time so be it, because a deal will move things along much further than an arrest and trial. And if you think Kushner will never cut a deal against his own father-in-law, consider that most people thought Flynn would never cut a deal against his beloved Trump either.

Donald Trump has spent the better part of the year at war with the FBI, because he knows the bureau is in a position to expose his Russian treason and his lifetime of crimes. He’s publicly harassed, berated and threatened various FBI leaders. He infamously and illegally fired FBI Director James Comey. He’s still trying to get rid of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. But the one person in the FBI who’s on his side is his own handpicked new Director, right? As it turns out, not so much.This summer, Trump nominated Christopher Wray as his new FBI Director. Based on his pattern of choosing his people, Trump clearly believed that Wray would throw the investigation in his favor, or at least be heavily biased in his favor. It appears that Wray has been playing along with this, at least to some extent. For instance Wray reassigned the FBI’s top lawyer Jim Baker for no valid reason, and it’s clear the move was only made because Baker is a witness in the obstruction case against Trump. Up to now it hasn’t been clear if Wray was eagerly helping Trump out, or simply doing enough to keep Trump satisfied. But now Wray is letting leak that he’s had enough.

Trump’s vicious public attacks this weekend on McCabe appear to have been enough to push Wray over the edge. Take this sentence from a new Wall Street Journal report (link): “Associates of Mr. Wray said the director has confidence in Mr. McCabe and admired how he ran the bureau after Mr. Comeys firing. Mr. Wray doesnt want to appear to have buckled under pressure from Mr. Trump or Republicans, the associates said.” Remarks like this don’t find their way into major newspapers by accident.

The only way that Christopher Wray’s “associates” would be sharing Wray’s views with the Wall Street Journal is if Wray himself told them to. This is his way of publicly pushing back against Trump’s antics. Trump may not take the hint, and Andrew McCabe may or may not survive this. But either way, it’s clear that Wray has already had enough of Trump’s crap. Yet again, Trump has misjudged his man.

Something very strange is going on within Michael Flynn’s family this week, and it raises questions about what’s going on behind the scenes with regard to Flynn and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Flynn cut a plea deal with Mueller three weeks ago, and by now has surely turned over enough evidence to take down Donald Trump and/or another big fish. But what happened over the holidays that caused Flynn’s son and Flynn’s brother to suddenly go berserk on Twitter?By all accounts, Michael Flynn cut a plea deal in order to protect his son, who was also exposed to criminal culpability in the Trump-Russia scandal. Based on his Twitter posts in the weeks since, Michael Flynn Jr is far from happy about that arrangement. But during the course of December 25th and 26th, Junior has gone completely off the deep end. He suddenly decided that Donald Trump’s nonstop golfing is somehow a good thing for conducting the nation’s business.

In the process, Michael Flynn Jr lashed out at Business Insider for being “idiots” and he slammed Raw Story for being a “POS left wing rag.” He also posted a barely describable video of CNN throwing a Christmas tree while Trump watched. Somewhere in there he also attacked the U.S. Navy based on a ridiculous conspiracy theory. But the simultaneous meltdown by Flynn’s brother may have been more telling.

Joseph Flynn took to Twitter on December 26th to lash out at Donald Trump, posting this rather hostile tweet: “About time you pardoned General Flynn who has taken the biggest fall for all of you given the illegitimacy of this confessed crime in the wake of all this corruption.” (link). He then deleted the tweet, but he acknowledges he posted it. So what’s going on here? Michael Flynn’s son and brother surely discussed aspects of his plea deal during Christmas. Perhaps Flynn told them he’s fully given Trump up, and neither is taking the news well. But something is certainly odd here.